• Published 31st Dec 2016
  • 343 Views, 6 Comments

Feyspeak - WritingSpirit



A travelling magician meets a young, precocious filly in the middle of the night.

  • ...
 6
 343

Eye

Light graced his eyes.

Silence, his ears; petrichor, his lungs.

He rested among daffodils and dragonflies that buttery morning. Dewdrops clustered underneath his hooves, sprinkling across the blades of green when he stretched outwards with a satisfied hum. He gazed eastward, from which laid a shadow, large and poignant like it always was in his daydreams. He recognized that shadow, that form it took. He recognized it from his doldrums, a faint sparkle that lingered there, fervently fizzling until it fizzled no more. He recognized it even more so when it finally took on a voice.

"Brax'cem mer."

The shadow gracefully strummed his ears, the warmth in his heart soaking through his cheeks. Trudging forward, he meekly knelt in a way he would never do to anyone else, in hopes the shadow would notice. He believed it already had long ago, being the most perceptive as shadows come and go, though it never seemed to provide to him as it was asking of him now. Nevertheless, he complied without question, Feyspeak or not, because in truth, being the mere fool that he is before this shadow, he quietly, selfishly wished for the same.

"Embrace me."

"Is this alright?"

The shadow regarded neither his words nor his gentle, trembling hooves wrapped around its waist. Instead, all it did was stare vigorously into the distance. He would sometimes follow its gaze, hoping to see anything beyond the niveous haze, wishing to understand whatever nubiform tidings its keen eyes could unfurl. Alas, he understood naught.

"May I know what ails you so?"

Pride withheld it from being predisposed with such conversations, so he believed. More than most, the shadow was proud, perhaps as much as it was perceptive. He couldn't recall how many times had he watched it waltz with ignorance, trampling over and over all his attempts of prosaic discourse. He, however, remained content, knowing that the shadow wishes for his contentment. If it would so help him be noticed, he would strive to be content, verily. Still, the shadow's gaze remained far ahead, to the opaque whiteness. Still, his faith shall not be shaken, and he must be content.

Pride withheld it, so he was mistaken.

For it had been patience all along.


"Mha'gner opna! Trye!"

Even if it were not for that infuriating screaming, he was certain the grandiose explosion that followed would've rouse him nonetheless.

"Ugh... fool."

Were it not for his soundproofing incantations, she would never hear the end of it, not even after their ends arrived. Nonetheless, the filly had felled a tree, so it would seem. It certainly looked like one of the many redwoods surrounding them, though with every tree dead and reeking in mire, one cannot be sure. It was all he really could make out from stealing a glimpse through the tearing brim of his muddied kalpak. He watched, bemused as splinters skittered across the lake like pond skaters, followed by a loud, rumbling splash when the upper half of the trunk came crashing down, sending waves clumping up the coast, with small sizzles and burgundy wisps of smoke emanating from wherever rotting flesh and bone felt the water's forbidden caress.

To most, such a feat would suffice.

Then again, to most, magic was more of a spectacle than anything else.

"You do know not everything is as findible as dead bark, young one? Certainly, you know your energies could go beyond that of mere Trye-grade incantations?"

The filly turned around, panting and sweating from her brow. "It's... it's the best I could do..." she gasped. "I... I had tried pushing for those of the Vier-grade sort, but I would always... feel really... really tired after that."

"Perhaps it should be as such," he mused delicately." For one of your modest size may not be capable of such spellcraft, howbeit I believed you should've been sent flying off to the yonside of the Badlands when you felled that tree. Indeed, I believed physicality is inapplicable to you, strangely enough. Still, as much as magical prowess matters, one must always adopt the right stances for every set of spells in order to harness its optimal capacity."

"Sta... stances?"

"But of course, a mere filly like you wouldn't comprehend, much less learn them," he swiftly rebuked, earning another irritating scowl from the filly. "You need not tarry yourself with the impossible now. Behold yourself to your current arsenal."

"But I can learn them!"

"Mere words do not rewrite fate, young one."

"But I really can! I'm sure of it!"

His snout wrinkled from the sickening sight of enthusiasm, one so crude and contagious. As commonplace as such diseases were, he felt fortunate to have developed an immunity for follies and fallacies long ago. With a nicker, he glanced to the blackening sky, clicking his tongue at the piceous sun already beginning to peek out from between the jagged cracks of the branches.

"We shall speak of it later. Morn had long came and gone, for it seems you did not find time critical enough to rouse me from my slumber."

The filly's gaze fell.

"I... I didn't think you'd like being woken up at this hour."

"Of course you didn't," he grumbled underneath his breath, before turning to her. "My intentions were to cover as much of the journey as we can without happening upon... hunters, to put it lightly. With the sun nearing its blackest, it is safe to say that such fortuitous encounters are to be expected."

The filly's ears fell flat. "Sorry..."

"Apologies do not rewrite fate, young one. Now then, we must be off. We've dawdled long enough already."

The magician trudged first; the filly meekly followed behind. He had her carrying the lightest of his saddlebags, for she mentioned wanting to prove herself useful throughout their short journey. And so they went, emerging from the cusp of bone and blubber, and down the curve of the coast, the forest bending over them before accepting them into their sprawling mass. He figured it stretched at least up until the next mountain range, thereupon most would then take the underpass. He reckoned that choice long and tiring, like an intestine twisting and turning in the belly of the earth. That's not to mention the horrors that seek solace in its omnipresent darkness, awaiting those that dare venture the depths. No, he had a different approach in mind; an option few would share.

"Th'murgan?"

"Feyspeak," he clicked. "What is it?"

"Why do you head south?"

A sigh.

"I never said I was heading south, filly."

"But you are, aren't you?"

"And what if I am? What would you, a mere filly, do upon knowing the fact that I'm heading south?"

The filly's face fell from under his hawkish glare.

Tranquility overcame his senses. For a moment, it almost seemed that he had never encountered this insubordinate filly. Oh, if only this world would reprieve him of such annoyances. Such was the fate of a wanderer, doomed to these frivolous encounters and the attitudes that came with them. Indeed, he felt fortunate that his destination was rather close by before this one leaves his side. That said, there were still some things about this filly that waxed his interest, perhaps much more than the prospect of a bright morning. He felt no need to pry as she did, yet he figured it harmless. If anything, her arcane prowess was intriguing, which only further prods his curiosity.

"Your parents."

"Huh?"

"Your parents," he tried again. "I shall assume that they're rather proficient with their magic, yes? Both unicorns?"

"I think so."

He couldn't help but frown. "Surely you jest. This land, blighted as it may be, was united underneath one banner, held high on the belief that the three races shall be united as one. You do know that right?"

"Of course! Earth pony, pegasi and unicorn! Father's a unicorn, just like you!"

"And your mother?"

"I... I never knew my mother..."

He stopped in his tracks, his gaze shifting right towards her.

"I'm sorry."

"Oh, it's alright. I don't really mind." She kicked about the burnt leaves underneath her hooves. "I heard she's really nice though. She was the nicest pony in the world."

"From your father, perhaps?"

"Maybe. I don't really know. Father never liked to talk about her." Her gaze fell alongside her voice, only to pick itself back up again. "But he really misses her a lot though. He talks a lot about her in his sleep sometimes."

"As grieving ponies oft do," he remarked, resuming his trotting. "I suppose he must be worried that you were not with him right now, filly. Did he know of your little expedition?"

The filly nodded reluctantly.

"And yet he allowed his very own daughter to chase after fables in the dark?"

"I can take care of myself, he knows that." Her gaze darkened. "You know, it's not fair that I'm answering all your questions when you don't even want to answer any of mine."

"You need not answer them then," he scoffed brusquely, smirking. "I never did say you had to answer any of those questions. I never needed to know about your parents, for it would serve no purpose the moment we part ways when I return you to your father. I do intend to meet with him, for he should at least be reprimanded for letting his very own daughter chase after the mythos of the Awyrgorn, of all the bedeviled legends she found pleasing to her ear."

"The Awyrgorn isn't a legend! It's real!"

"It's fanatical, young one. You can't chase those that had left this earth, particularly those that left the rest of us here to rot and die."

"They... they didn't leave us."

"Then where were they?" he boiled. "Where were they when the sun burned black? Where were they when the moon bled red? Where were they when the amber syrup" —he slammed a hoof into the bark of one of the dead trees, his nose curling before the stench spewing from the cracks— "churned into puce-grey bile, spilling from the taps and broiling the very mouths it was supposed to feed? Face it, filly! The Awyrgorn had left us and they will never, ever, ever be coming back!"

Suddenly, the sky rumbled.

The sun burned ever blacker.

A shadow befell upon the spindles and the tainted land it grew from. The clouds darted ahead, the stars shattering above them. In the blink of an eye, what little light that remained began to fade. The magician could only look up to the sky, petrified in awe and horror as the black sun swallowed itself up, only to burst back open in an aurulent scream. Underneath that blinding, golden glare, all he could only do was squint, yet beyond the deathly screams plaguing the minds of the earth, he could make out a black, trembling slit, neatly and thinly incised down the middle, the sight of which left him gasping the only comprehensible word left in his head.

"Filly! Filly, we have to go!"

The filly couldn't hear him. Not when her head was filled with the very same screams. Not when her head burned underneath those passionate screeches and forced her gaze towards the diadermic light entrancing her, entrenching her, burrowing into the very nerves that made her. Her jaw fell, her mouth frothed, her voice teetered, struggling to find its place among the choir, before finally, finally, she was in harmony. In those dissonant, sulfurous shrills, her voice belonged as tears fell from her eyes, whether overwhelmed from joy or terror, she wasn't sure. Then again, why should be sure? Why resort to follies when you can but rejoice?

Be still, the chorus sang.

Be at peace.

And peace was what she had, and what she will always have.

For the rest of her short life.


"Skruth'ansiht! Ala'mosna ter fra s'wel rebh fortia!"


A crack of blue streaked across the glade, if only for a moment. The filly blinked from the sudden onslaught, the chorus in her head silenced for good. Before she knew it, she was yanked away by talons of cyan before finding herself onto the galloping magician's back. Howls erupted from behind, the forsaken light searing the hairs on her back. She craned her neck back, only to find a wisp of magic forcing her head forward with a strong nudge on her paling cheeks.

"Don't look back! Don't ever look back!"

Fearfully, she nodded, clutching onto him and clenching her eyes tighter even as the screams grew closer and closer. The magician leaped and lunged, the roots threatening to snap his hooves from under him and the branches threatening to impale him by the throat. A loud, piercing roar shattered the earth, and though the filly never looked back, she didn't need to, for she could make out a colossal, serpentine shadow slowly creeping up underneath them from the ground below, and it was growing noticeably larger and larger by the second.

"Head! Down!"

Immediately, she complied just as he made a gravity-defying leap, her mane barely grazed by a low-hanging stalactite, before they landed safely with a splash. Slowly, her eyes opened, adjusting to a new kind of darkness, one bereft of the monstrosity that reaped her mind. The magician's gallops fell back into a leisurely canter, hoofsteps and pants echoing through the grand cave they found themselves in. He hissed when a draft flew from the depths, scraping across a few cuts he sustained during their desperate escape. With a grunt, he fell back onto his flank, saddlebags clattering with his back resting against the cavern walls.

"Never had it done that," he rumbled to himself, brows furrowing. "No, no, inexplicable, inconceivable, it... it never showed itself with the sun. Why now? Why... now..."

"W-What was that?"

The filly's voice shook violently, so much so that the magician tried his best to contain his own shivers.

"It came with the black sun. I know not of it's true name. No one does. We can all agree that when the world began to fester, it was the one that marveled its ulcers. When the mornings first burned black, it commenced the arrival by assuring that some of the northern villages did the same. Apart from that, we can also agree on what it would be called."

"What is it?"

"Jörmungandr," came his grave answer, decrepit and desolate. "Remember this name well, for this name had haunted us, and it shall haunt us ever longer until eternity's end."

His gaze drew back to the mouth of the cave, where the sun burned bright still.

"Fortunately, with his strangely sudden interference, our journey's been hastened. I intended to travel through these caves. If anything, we should be safe, given that nothing else is lurking here, which I believe it so, for only a few knew this route. We definitely can't turn back now, not with it roaming the glade."

The filly, for once, found that prospect more hopeful, if nothing else.

"Forward?" she asked with a cock of her head, even as she knew the answer.

The magician stopped himself short of a snort.

"Forward."


Darkness graced his eyes.

He saw it now: it, coming from the east, toiling and tumbling from beyond the clouds, churning the winds into guttural howls. The first screams of many graced his once-innocent ears. A shatter split his skull, like vultures tearing into carrion. As the burning choir sharpened, he found himself joining their hymn, cursing all that was while praising the coming of this new world, even as blood ran from his ears and down his cheeks. He found himself screaming and shouting, his thoughts chiming in mass hysteria. In all that frenzy, however, his sanity clung onto his trembling spine, before he found himself chanting a familiar pair of words that would, in the end, be the very words that ultimately saved his mind.

"Embrace me!"